Databases know more about you than you realise. A Carnegie Mellon University study recently showed that simply by knowing gender, birth date and postal zip code, 87% of people in the United States could be pinpointed by name.
Websites can collect huge amounts of data from users. Retailers, for example, can track our every click, what we buy, how much we spend, which advertisements we see – even which ones we linger over with our mouse.
Sites can easily access your entire web browser history, enabling them to try and guess your gender and other demographic information.
What the data miners are digging up about you – tech – 28 November 2008 – New Scientist
